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They don't make players like Summers anymore. With the short benches, you are either a backup catcher, defensive specialist or a multi-position guy. I liked when teams had spots on their bench for platoon players like Summers. I remember one year he was complaining that he wanted to play full-time, so Sparky finally put him out there against against two of the best lefties - I think Flanagan and McGregor. He went 0 for 8 with a bunch of strikeouts and that was the end of that.

The whole idea of platooning positions has been killed by the need to carry so many pitchers. Another unintended consequence of the pitching 'problem' and probably one of the reasons that non-HR run scoring has fallen - more batters are having to face more pitchers of the same hand more often.

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Good to see the Tigers score some runs, and score them early, on the road. Was listening to Dan and Jim for the first inning, they mentioned that the Tigers had scored 22 runs in their last 11 games on the road coming into tonight. Really good to see a 5 spot in the first inning. They got some big hits with RISP and with 2 outs.

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Now, Jones batting leadoff is an interesting decision (i heard Candelario prefers batting 2nd, 4th, or 5th, he is a bit uncomfortable leading off). Jones is really scuffling. Not sure he should be playing, except for a pinch running or a D situation. I really hope he can find his swing, as he is a dynamic player, adds energy, can run the bases really well, plays solid D, has some power. But, he is starting to leave the zone a lot again, and the K's are starting to pile up.

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Maybe because we don't have a guy in Toledo or Erie banging on the door to steal the DH job from him. Barring that, as bad as he is, Victor is still a household name and a veteran connection to the playoff teams, and since we're not going to the playoffs and we still have to pay him anyway, no point in dumping him just because.

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I'm pretty sure fans would rather win even 1 more game over the season than watch the "draw" of Victor Martinez' corpse struggling to move around again. There's really nothing to gain from keeping him other than "it's the easier choice"

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Maybe because we don't have a guy in Toledo or Erie banging on the door to steal the DH job from him. Barring that, as bad as he is, Victor is still a household name and a veteran connection to the playoff teams, and since we're not going to the playoffs and we still have to pay him anyway, no point in dumping him just because.

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seriously - it's hard to get excited over that. Not unusual for guy to drop 50 BA points on the transition - so another sub 250 bat in the line-up. Yes the current line-up sucks, and I'm fine with giving Stewart a shot, I just won't expect much.

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Yes but you don't want a DH who is 24 if he could play LF a little better than he can now, and that OPS of .889 was up around 1.000 about a month ago I think. He's 11-for-42 in his last 10 games, with no home runs and 13 K's. This happened last year at Erie too, he started the year red hot and then slowed down dramatically. Let's wait until June 30. And, his situation has absolutely nothing to do with Victor, they are not even remotely related.

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Yes but you don't want a DH who is 24 if he could play LF a little better than he can now, and that OPS of .889 was up around 1.000 about a month ago I think. He's 11-for-42 in his last 10 games, with no home runs and 13 K's. This happened last year at Erie too, he started the year red hot and then slowed down dramatically. Let's wait until June 30. And, his situation has absolutely nothing to do with Victor, they are not even remotely related.

I'd rather have a 24 year old DHing who has promise than a 39 year old who is all washed up. Or you shuffle the players around so that Miggy or Castellanos is the one DHing. Whatever gets Victor Martinez off the team.

Are you suggesting that Stewart isn't ready? According to FanGraphs' wRC+ metric, Stewart is 3rd in the International League, only behind teammate Chad Huffman and the Blue Jays' Danny Jansen. If not Victor Martinez, at least send Victor Reyes back to wherever he came from. I know the fear is that every Tiger prospect is going to turn into Steven Moya, but that doesn't mean we should never give these guys a chance.

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I'd rather have a 24 year old DHing who has promise than a 39 year old who is all washed up. Or you shuffle the players around so that Miggy or Castellanos is the one DHing. Whatever gets Victor Martinez off the team.

Are you suggesting that Stewart isn't ready? According to FanGraphs' wRC+ metric, Stewart is 3rd in the International League, only behind teammate Chad Huffman and the Blue Jays' Danny Jansen. If not Victor Martinez, at least send Victor Reyes back to wherever he came from. I know the fear is that every Tiger prospect is going to turn into Steven Moya, but that doesn't mean we should never give these guys a chance.

Also, what makes June 30 the magical date?

“Whatever get victor Martinez off the team” is a pretty horrible justification for a move involving another player.

For what it’s worth, I would be quite happy with a decision to release victor. But I don’t think I would call up Stewart to fill that spot on the 25 man.

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That's a pretty front-loaded batting line, though. Christn Stewart is batting .258/.340/.366 since May 15, and in AAA, not the majors, and with a BABIP of .344 during that time. That's not going to be enough to kick Victor to the curb and simply eat the remaining $11 million on his contract.

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To be clear, I'm not a big fan of Victor playing, either, and if the Tigers released him, I'd be indifferent to it, because it wouldn't really matter much to me and where the Tigers are going in the short term.

If I'm the Tigers, though, I'm not going to risk alienating two constituencies: (1) the ticket-buying emotional Tiger fan base who knows Victor as a once-great hitter and believe in their hearts he can be that again; and (2) Miguel Cabrera, who is Victor's countryman and the only other guy on the team who can even come close to relating to Miggy on his level. Everyone else on the roster are non-Latinos, rent-a-players, or children. I don't know for a fact that's a thing, but I strongly suspect it is.

And as long as Victor is not going to cost us a playoff spot, anyway, and he's not blocking anyone serious on the roster or in the minors, so what if he plays out the string?

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That's a pretty front-loaded batting line, though. Christn Stewart is batting .258/.340/.366 since May 15, and in AAA, not the majors, and with a BABIP of﻿.344 during that time. That's not going to be enough to kick Victor to the curb, money or no﻿﻿.

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To be clear, I'm not a big fan of Victor playing, either, and if the Tigers released him, I'd be indifferent to it, because it wouldn't really matter much to me and where the Tigers are going in the short term.

If I'm the Tigers, though, I'm not going to risk alienating two constituencies: (1) the ticket-buying emotional Tiger fan base who knows Victor as a once-great hitter and believe in their hearts he can be that again; and (2) Miguel Cabrera, who is Victor's countryman and the only other guy on the team who can even come close to relating to Miggy on his level. Everyone else on the roster are non-Latinos, rent-a-players, or children. I don't know for a fact that's a thing, but I strongly suspect it is.

And as long as Victor is not going to cost us a playoff spot, anyway, and he's not blocking anyone serious on the roster or in the minors, so what if he plays out the string?

I think you may be overestimating the ticket buying emotional tigers fan base and their relationship to victor.

I’m with you though. I would be happy if they cut him. I’m also happy if they keep him. It’s the least of my concerns with this tigers team. I think gardenhire and Avila understand the emotional ramifications on the clubhouse in keeping him or releasing him. I’m quite content to make the appeal to authority logical fallacy here.

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I think Martinez' situation and Stewart's situation are independent of each other. If they did release Martinez, they could just bring up Rodriguez or Adduci or whomever.

yup. Adduci is a decent fit as a replacement DH. He held a 700 OPS in ~100PPA last season - not much HR power but a few doubles. Martinez being a switch hitter is one of the things that I imagine make them loathe to give up on him, but if you are not hitting from either side.....